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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 



THE 
SEVEN WHO SLEPT 



BY 



A. KINGSLEY PORTER 




BOSTON 

MARSHALL JONES COMPANY 

M D CCCC XIX 






COPYRIGHT, 1919 
BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY 



All rights reserved 



PRINTED IN U. 8. A. 
BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, 



Jul 23 m 

©CI.A529350 



PREFACE 

In the days of the glory of Rome — when 
men were wont, just as now, to throw their 
shoulders out of joint by striving to em- 
brace the universe — the poet Lucretius 
dreamed a dream saturated with the per- 
fume of adolescence. He imagined he could 
free the human race from superstition. 
Shocked at the cruelty of the state religion, 
at the waste and uselessness of worship to 
imaginary deities, at the immorality of cer- 
tain rites, at the imbecility of the apotheo- 
sized emperors, he determined to open 
men's eyes, to point out to them the truth. 

To-day Lucretius' purpose is accom- 
plished, albeit not by him and through forces 
he little imagined. The gods of Rome, 
cold as any stone, are wrapped in a sempi- 
ternal twilight. On this wide planet with 
all its extravagant sects and conflicting 
creeds, with its myriad world-weary, belief- 
hungry human beings, there is no longer a 
man who believes in Jove or even Apollo. 
[ 5 ] 



PREFACE 

The Olympian dynasty that once exerted 
through a flock of birds or the entrails 
of a victim despotic control alike over 
trivial detail of individual lives and over the 
gravest decisions of national destiny has? 
passed. The earth has been freed from a 
great illusion. 

Fortunate for Lucretius (as, indeed, for 
any one), that he never saw the realization 
of his dream ! He who had imagined a race 
made god-like by a great emancipation, 
would have found — us, with our unnum- 
bered contradictory and irreconcilable be- 
liefs and religions; he would have learned 
that worse than error is materialism, and 
worse than materialism is war; he would 
have seen that men who no longer hale vic- 
tims to the altar of Hercules are not neces- 
sarily nobler in action nor freer in thought. 

The truth appears to be, indeed, that the 
only power which can — or at least com- 
monly does — dispel an illusion is another 
illusion. The human mind is so constituted 
that it abhors a vacuum of lies. If we drive 
out one, we must put a second more power- 
ful in its place. Lucretius himself was able 
[ 6 ] 



PREFACE 

to obtain freedom from the illusion of the 
pagan gods only by making himself the 
slave of another, worse, because mechanical 
and lifeless — the dogma of fortuitous 
atoms. Had he not been comforted by 
this empirical myth, he could never have 
escaped from the poetic one of Olympus. 
When the world at large turned its back 
on the temple of Jupiter, it was because 
it too had found another illusion, one 
sweeter doubtless than the barren intel- 
lectualism of the poet, but still an illu- 
sion. The Christian was not terrified by 
thunder on the right, but he avoided setting 
sail on Friday. If he no longer poured 
libations to the gods of the lower world, he 
was still unwilling to sit thirteen at table. 
Miracles were performed by relics that are 
now proven false. Worship and devotion 
were paid to the unauthentic bodies of bogus 
saints. The particular sect or religion in 
which, gentlest of readers, you and I chance 
to believe, is, let it be at once granted, free 
from illusion. We two, at any rate, eagle- 
like can look with unflinching eye upon the 
sun of truth. We doubtless have compre- 
[ 7 ] 



PREFACE 

hended aright the mysteries of the universe. 
When, however, we ponder how many are 
the forms of religious belief in the world 
to-day, and that all these, in measure as 
they differ from our own, must be more or 
less erroneous, we realize how small, how 
negligibly small, a minority believe as you 
and I believe; and in consequence, how 
many are still guided by illusion. 

Yet these others who believe an untruth, 
are perhaps on that account no less amiable 
and no less happy. For the Sicilian peas- 
ant, a jewel-bedecked Madonna of wax 
conveys an inspiration the philosophies of 
Plato or Croce are powerless to bestow. 
Through illusion, during the centuries, 
heart-aches have been assuaged, moral cour- 
age attained, death endured. A truth which 
would deprive human frailty of such a sol- 
ace would indeed be cruel. It is true 
that religious illusion has created not only 
Gothic cathedrals, Miltons, saints, but icon- 
oclasts, inquisitors, wars. Yet the very 
cruelty, the very hardness of religion bear 
witness to its vitality. Men do not die, or 
even put to death, for what is nothing 
[ 8 ] 



PREFACE 

to them. If they have fought for religion, 
it has been because religion was essen- 
tial to their happiness. To-day, for all 
our tolerance (and we are relatively toler- 
ant only because we are relatively indif- 
ferent), we hardly dare write or even speak 
of religion. Experience has taught that 
difference of opinion upon this wounds 
more deeply than upon any other subject. 
It is clear that man still clutches desper- 
ately at religious belief. Only a Gre- 
gors would, even if he could, rob him, in the 
interest of some cold intellectual truth, of 
an illusion for which he so ardently yearns. 

Illusion, too, is the faith that quite liter- 
ally has power to heal the sick and move 
mountains. The remedy prescribed in the 
Shinto shrines of Japan, in the fanes of Aes- 
culapius, in countless sanctuaries of the 
Middle Ages, at Lourdes, at Ste.-Anne-de- 
Beaupre and by Christian Science is always 
the same, and always effective. Greek phy- 
sicians, wiser than ours, recognized that 
magical amulets frequently produced re- 
sults for which they were entirely unable to 
account. The benefits we derive from mod- 

[ 9 ] 



PREFACE 

ern medicine are doubtless increased by the 
fact that we have confidence, perhaps over- 
confidence, in its power. It is a banal 
observation that in many disorders the 
mental is at least as important as the 
physical. Faith has indubitably the power 
to create actuality. 

Of all illusions, the most futile and the 
most dangerous is that of emancipation 
from illusion. Lucretius was only one of a 
long series of Don Quixotes who have chiv- 
alrously set their lances in rest to reduce to 
fact a world whose lungs can only breathe 
the air of unreality. At most, these dream- 
breakers have but succeeded in replacing a 
time-bitten illusion by a less dusty one. The 
eighteenth century with touching naivete 
set out upon the fool's quest after truth. It 
threw out upon the dung-heap the illusion 
of dogma, and set up in its place the illusion 
of reason. Rousseau's noble savage fur- 
nished the leather from which were resoled 
the boots of Moses. 

There ensued an avalanche of minor con- 
sequences, the course of which it is comical 
enough to follow. The queen must mas- 
[ 10 ] 



PREFACE 

querade as a dairy-maid. To supply a mise- 
en-scene, Le Notre's masterpiece had to be 
trinketed out with toy lakes and dolls' 
houses. It subsequently transpired that, 
after all, savages never had been noble. But 
from illusion, reality had already resulted. 
Inspired by Versailles, an entire school of 
landscape gardening took its rise. Thus the 
illusion of the noble savage becomes tan- 
gible reality for Philemon, who, seeking the 
sunshine of a spring Sunday, wanders list- 
lessly among the labyrinthian pathways of 
his city park. 

The return to nature was promptly dis- 
carded by the nineteenth century, which in- 
stead bought fresh nostrums from new char- 
latans. The noble savage was replaced by 
the perhaps equally imaginary primitive 
man of the anthropologists. The illusion 
of mechanistic science has produced another 
crop of pragmatic results, partly good, 
mostly evil — and these will perhaps live 
long after the theory which produced them, 
yielding to something newer, has passed, 
like Lucretius' atoms, into the charnel-house 
of discarded creeds. 

[ 11 ] 



PREFACE 

Nor is it only in matters pertaining to 
philosophy that illusion hems us about. The 
poetry of youth — that golden, magnetic 
youth sung by Conrad, youth that is so full 
of faith and aspiration and possibility, 
youth, the consummation of life — is only il- 
lusion. Youth is youth, because only then 
native optimism is still undarkened by the 
shadow of reality. From illusion youth 
gains its elasticity and buoyancy, unreach- 
able to middle age, heavy with weary knowl- 
edge. Through dreaming of the impos- 
sible, youth stretches beyond the limits of 
attainment. The strong man never entirely 
outgrows the illusions of youth. By hitch- 
ing our wagon to a star we may not succeed 
in navigating the heavens, but we are at 
least enabled to stand on tip-toe. He who 
sees himself as he truly is, becomes the 
most cowed and cringing of mortals. It is 
vitally necessary for every one, in his heart 
of hearts, to believe that in some direction 
he is gifted above his fellows, and to this 
necessity we happily all conform. Achieve- 
ment is only possible because we each, in- 
stinctively, over-estimate our own worth. 
[ 12 ] 



PREFACE 

Thus the very foundations of life are laid on 
illusion. 

That which we call idealism is also only 
the stuff that dreams are made of. Outraged 
spirits thus escape from the prose of reality 
to the poetry of imagination. This will-o'- 
the-wisp has heartened many tired wander- 
ers. It is as inspiring, if not more so, to im- 
itate an ideal as an actual example. A man 
may often acquire force of character by be- 
lieving himself, or another, to possess moral 
qualities not real, but imaginary, and then 
striving with his entire energies to realize 
that conception. There can be no doubt 
that Islam, through following the ideal of 
Mahomet, is vastly different from what it 
would have been, had it followed the ideal 
of Buddha or of Confucius. No actual be- 
ing ever existed like Pisanello's Gabriel, yet 
that dream of unreality brightened the 
existence not only of its creator, but of 
generations who have come after. All art, 
indeed, is constantly trespassing upon the 
ideal. And the imaginary non-existent con- 
ception is as constantly being translated into 
fact. Scientists have frequently observed 
[ 13 ] 



PREFACE 

the power of ideals to mould reality through 
natural selection. It is similarly an ancient 
axiom that anything is possible to him who 
but wills intensely enough. What we dream 
determines what we become. Carlyle is en- 
tirely right — tell me what you believe, and 
I will tell you what you are. The material 
is only clay, which is given shape by the im- 
material. 

Scholarship, which seems so cumber- 
some, so bound hand and foot to fact, is 
in reality based on illusion. The student one 
day conceives intuitively a thesis. He then 
sets out to collect facts to support his point 
of view. If he be of altogether exceptional 
integrity, he may alter his preconceived 
opinion slightly — never very much — to 
conform with the result of his researches; 
usually, however, his original idea remains 
inviolate, and is the inspiration which spurs 
him on to ransack dusty folios and archives, 
to decipher forgotten records. When all is 
done, the future quickly discards the thesis 
which has been his pride, to support which he 
has expended years of patient labour. But 
the facts he has collected to prove his point, 
[ 14 ] 



PREFACE 

although they fail of their purpose, may be 
for themselves of the highest importance. 
Once more illusion has made achievement 
possible. 

Every one has noticed that children con- 
stantly take refuge in illusion. Little 
Baukis imagines that her dolls are real be- 
ings. She knows that actually they are 
not, but this knowledge in no wise inter- 
feres with her pleasure in naming them, 
in lavishing affection upon them, in enter- 
ing into their fictitious lives. The same 
element of illusion is the soul of all toys. 
The hobby-horse becomes alive, real houses 
are constructed from the blocks, mimic 
automobiles and trains of cars annihilate 
space with a success quite beyond the reach 
of the latest machinery. The more widely 
toys differ from actuality, the more pleas- 
ure will they be apt to give. Philemon is 
quite conscious that his son and heir de- 
rives far less delight from realistic me- 
chanical toys, than an older generation 
found in simpler, more imaginative, play- 
things. There is, as educationalists have 
preached so much — and so in vain — no 
[ 15 ] 



PREFACE 

surer way to crush joy from the life of a 
child than to burden him with elaborate 
toys. For his happiness, like that of all the 
world, lies in imagination. 

The child weaves about his life a veil of 
romance. Little Philemon derives keener 
pleasure from a simple fairy-tale than his 
mother does from a novel of great artistry. 
His childish imagination is always on the 
alert. For him the woods are inhabited by 
strange animals, half terrifying, half allur- 
ing. Bogey shapes lurk in dark rooms; 
little pigs run along the window-sills; hob- 
goblins dance naked in the moonshine of 
summer nights. He lives in a world that 
has few points of contact with the more 
sober one his elders know. He is driven 
by an instinct as powerful and unreasoning 
as that of sex will later become, always to 
pretend something which is one thing is 
something else. 

Of all illusions, the most transparent, per- 
haps, is love. When the lover, sighing like 
a furnace, composes a sonnet to his mistress' 
eyebrow, he probably actually believes the 
object of his affection is superior to other 
[ 16 ] 



PREFACE 

mortals. This illusion sometimes outlasts 
the difficult period of adjustment sad matri- 
mony entails. When at last it inevitably 
dissolves, there is at least a chance custom 
may take its place, and prove a force of 
equal potency. Baukis and Philemon fall 
in love and marry. At first each believes the 
other the realization of an ideal type. If 
Baukis burns the toast, she is readily for- 
given in view of her imaginary perfections. 
Philemon spills pipe-ashes on the bureau, 
which of all things tries most sorely the 
very depths of Baukis' soul; but instead of 
flying to the divorce-court, Baukis con- 
tents herself with meditating upon the quali- 
ties she supposes Philemon to possess. 
Years roll by. Philemon now and then 
steals a glance at Naera's golden hair or 
Chloe's well -shaped foot. Baukis, on 
the other hand, allows herself, very occa- 
sionally, to look deep into the eyes of 
Adonis. But Philemon has now come 
rather to prefer burnt toast; and Baukis 
no longer notices the pipe-ashes on the 
bureau. So they live together more happily 
than ever, until one day there comes to knock 
[ 17 ] 



PREFACE 

at their door a gentle god, disguised as a 
stranger. 

So on the foundation of illusion is built 
the mansion of happiness. Possibly an in- 
distinct and instinctive realization of this is 
the basis for the romantic tradition that 
marriage should be founded solely upon sex 
passion. Considered materialistically, noth- 
ing could be more insensate than to found 
an enduring relationship upon the most 
volatile and least abiding of human whims. 
Reason is undoubtedly on the side of the 
irate parents ; Juliet and Leandre would be 
fools, Shakespeare, Moliere, and all the 
other playwrights and novelists who arouse 
our sympathies for such nonsense, dangerous 
maniacs. Again, as always, when illusion 
and reason are arrayed against each other, 
humanity has instinctively followed the for- 
mer, rightly divining in her a far safer guide. 

Indeed, all society is based on illusion. 
Without it, intercourse with our fellows 
would be utterly impossible. A thousand 
times in every day human vanity must be 
assuaged by its gentle ministrations. We 
are all members of a mutual deception fra- 
L 18 ] 



PREFACE 

ternity. The golden rule is right: we must 
do unto others as we would be done by. It 
gives us great pleasure to be admired and 
liked ; therefore we must admire and like our 
friends. It becomes a convention that we 
must pretend to, whether or not we really 
do. If Alceste allows an over-nice con- 
science to interfere with this pleasant illu- 
sion, he is deservedly subjected to swift and 
severe punishment by outraged society. 
Life would indeed be unendurable if we had 
always to live with the truth. If Pylades 
should tell Philemon not that he is glad to 
see him, but that he is bored at his visit, each 
would not only lose a valued friend, but 
gain a dangerous enemy. Lies are the oil, 
without which the machinery of life can not 
revolve. Women, as a rule, are more suc- 
cessful in society than men, because they are 
more fluent and more convincing liars. It 
is not only that many important facts must 
be passed over in silence. If Baukis dis- 
likes Phoebe's barocco dinner, the absence 
of praise may cut quite as deeply as adverse 
criticism. The situation can only be saved 
by lyric rhapsody. The half lie of silence by 

[ 19 ] 



PREFACE 

which we New-Englanders so often seek to 
save our perverse consciences is the most dis- 
mal of failures. To lie gracefully, heartily, 
easily, unconsciously, is a sine qua non of 
loving, and being loved by, one's fellow men. 

Life becomes an impossible burden for 
the man who tries to break the illusions of 
social intercourse. Ever since the Misan- 
thrope the theme has been a favourite one 
with dramatists. And there is no escape from 
the inexorable conclusion. So long as we live 
in this world with other men, so long must 
we allow ourselves to be deluded, so long 
must we play our part in deluding others. 

The world is right in preferring the illu- 
sion-mongers to the truth-tellers. The 
public will devour novels, while leaving ac- 
curate books of fact to gather dust upon the 
shelves. Happy Baukis, who creates the 
sunshine she imagines, is far more valuable 
to humanity than long-faced Philemon, who 
sees the world in its true grayness. Baukis 
will be surrounded by friends, while Phile- 
mon will live in isolation, for friendship, 
too, is based on illusion. 

No trait of human character is, indeed, 
[ 20 ] 



PREFACE 

more entirely unamiable than the peculiarly 
Anglo-Saxon vice of telling the truth. It is 
the acrid root from which has grown the 
sourness of Puritanism. For centuries it 
has poisoned the well-springs of happiness. 
For this theoretical impossibility we have 
sacrificed art, religion and conversation, all 
without once even distantly attaining our 
aim. In our efforts to dispel illusion we have 
rejected the best that life offers, yet we are 
more than ever surrounded by lies and im- 
postures. 

Indeed, we should do far better, I sus- 
pect, if we should take for our governing 
ideal in life, not truth — which results merely 
in ugly hypocrisy — but the artistic lie. It 
is impossible to live in a Latin country, less 
shackled than Anglo-Saxon lands by preju- 
dice in favour of truth, without becoming 
aware how infinitely more pleasant and 
beautiful life becomes under such condi- 
tions. At first, perhaps, our more prosaic 
natures are slightly shocked at transparent 
prevarications, but this feeling is soon sup- 
planted by one of admiration for the imag- 
ination that conceives, for the assurance 
[ 21 ] 



PREFACE 

which carries through, each flight of fancy. 
A good lie should be admired and enjoyed 
as deeply as a great poem. Both are works 
of genius. Both can be produced only under 
creative inspiration. The attitude of the 
Greeks was essentially right. Odysseus the 
resourceful liar was a far more interesting, 
as well as useful person, than the brute, 
unimaginative and therefore truth-telling 
Achilles. No one can read Sophocles' 
Electra without taking pleasure in the in- 
genious lie by which Orestes and Pylades 
dupe Clytemnestra to her undoing. Even a 
New-Englander can not be but delighted 
over that other tale which Iphigenia in- 
vented for the benefit of Thoas. It is evi- 
dent that a lie, provided it be sufficiently well 
done, is admirable. My own regret is, that, 
try as I will, I can not tell a good, round, 
mouth-filling lie. I am as painfully unimag- 
inative as the proverbial George Washing- 
ton. (It will be remembered he is always 
quoted, alas, doubtless only too correctly, as 
having said " I can not," not " I will not.") 
My tongue is congealed by the blood of 
generations of unlying ancestors. Only 
[ 22 ] 



PREFACE 

after a fierce mental conflict can my reason 
conquer my native instinct to tell the truth. 
And when at last the resolve has all too late 
been taken, the words stick and catch in my 
throat, or are blushingly stammered out. 
Better never to have attempted than to have 
so lamentably failed. It is from such sorry 
performances as this that lies derive their 
bad reputation. 

The arts depend upon lies for the very 
breath of life. One and all they demand that 
we imagine to be what is not. When we read 
Homer, Agamemnon and Thersites and 
Helen and Patroklos become living persons. 
We are intellectually well aware they have 
been dead thousands of years, we even have 
grave doubts whether they ever really lived 
at all. We are quite certain they did not 
speak in dactylic hexameters. Yet we de- 
rive delight from deliberately letting our- 
selves believe what we know is not true. 
Illusion is infinitely pleasurable. 

This psychological fact is the basis of 

all literature. Poet, novelist, dramatist, 

even historian, exploit it unscrupulously. 

Whether we explore Paradise with Dante, 

[ 23 ] 



PREFACE 

or join Chaucer's pilgrimage to Canter- 
bury, we are constantly making demands 
upon our imagination. We know that the 
Castle of Elsinor is constructed of painted 
canvas, that Osvald, far from being mad, is 
actually an actor of unusually fine intelli- 
gence, who will presently be bowing and 
smiling before the curtain. Such knowledge, 
however, we allow in no wise to interfere 
with our illusion. Indeed, it is only because 
we are conscious of being deceived that such 
plays as Hamlet or Ghosts are tolerable. 
We are most of us hardly cold-blooded 
enough to endure, much less enjoy, wit- 
nessing such painful scenes in real life. 
There is an irresistible fascination in illu- 
sion itself. In order to obtain this delight we 
accept the thousand conventions which in the 
theatre, or in any other art, separate from 
reality the mimic show. Indeed it may be 
suspected that these very conventions in- 
crease our pleasure. They constantly make 
us conscious of the luxury of indulging in 
illusion. The most realistic art is by no 
means the most enjoyable. If it should be 
possible to eliminate entirely conventions, 
[ 24 ] 



PREFACE 

so as to destroy all consciousness of illusion, 
if we should deeply feel that we were pres- 
ent, not at a work of art but at reality, trag- 
edy would give us no pleasure. It is by this 
token, perhaps, that the freer modern 
drama fails to give the delight of a Greek 
play, and that, in general, archaic, formal 
art is more appealing than later, more 
naturalistic types. 

Fiction obviously depends upon illusion 
quite as fundamentally as drama. When 
Philemon, sitting before the winter fire in 
smoking- jacket and slippers, reads Fielding, 
he ceases more or less for the moment to be 
Philemon, and becomes Tom Jones living in 
the London of the eighteenth century. No 
doubt Philemon is infinitely happier than 
Tom Jones, and would be pained to find 
himself actually standing in the latter's 
shoes. The fancy is, however, most agree- 
able so long as he can, at will, lay aside the 
book, and in his own person talk over with 
Baukis the latest local scandal. 

History appeals to the same delight in 
conscious illusion. Each Alcibiades, each 
Louis XI, each Qeeen Elizabeth, relives in 
[ 25 ] 



PREFACE 

every reader. Historians have generally 
shown more imagination than writers of 
fiction. Thus of the world's vast output of 
literature — poetry, novel, essay or history 
— that which is free from the element of il- 
lusion would reduce itself to small dimen- 
sions, and still smaller value. 

The painter and the sculptor trifle with 
illusion in the same spirit. Across a veil of 
conventions they are constantly making us 
imagine we are looking, not at a block of 
marble or a piece of coloured canvas, but at 
something else totally different. We thor- 
oughly enjoy being fooled, so long as the il- 
lusion is not too complete. A mirror which 
is practically indistinguishable from reality 
has no longer charm. A picture which be- 
comes too much like a mirror we are apt to 
find equally unpleasant. We must have the 
convention to remind us continually that 
we are tasting the most exquisite of delights, 
that of believing something which we know 
is contrary to fact. 

Music also has of recent years tended more 
and more to encroach upon the realm of im- 
agination. Even when least descriptive, when 
[ 26 ] 



PREFACE 

not seeking to imitate the world of actuality, 
music, like architecture and the arts of pure 
design, is none the less based on illusion. 
The artist who has created, whether musi- 
cian, or architect, or designer, has inevitably 
first imagined. He conceived in his brain 
something which did not exist, an ideal 
combination of columns and architraves, of 
colours or patterns, of melody and harmony, 
and this dream has then been made concrete 
reality. 

Of all illusions, none perhaps so persist- 
ently haunts the human mind as that of 
peace. The essence of life is struggle, yet 
we dream of stagnation. Philemon rouses 
himself from effort to effort — lights the 
furnace, expostulates with the plumber, 
quarrels with his publisher, sits out one more 
dinner-party, always in the hope that some 
day he can rest. Each battle is endurable 
because of the belief that at last will come 
time and leisure, and books and thought. 
Vainest of delusions ! Short of death in this 
world of turmoil neither he nor any one else 
will ever find peace. As lives go, Philemon's 
has doubtless been singularly happy. Luck 
[ 27 ] 



PREFACE 

on the whole has been strangely in his favour. 
Among the reefs and shoals he has escaped 
shipwreck more than once, it seemed al- 
most by a miracle. As each danger in turn 
has loomed large and menacing, he has 
braced himself to meet it, cherishing the il- 
lusion that this once past no others would 
succeed. Yet there is not, nor can there ever 
be, security. The death of one, and the 
world, gay as a fresco of Pintoricchio, flakes 
from the mouldy wall. 

The same illusion of peace has weighed 
upon the nations. For centuries the Roman 
armies toiled, and the dreamed-of goals of 
peace and safety seemed within their grasp. 
" Let the Alps sink! " Again illusion. The 
hordes of Alaric howled on the desolated 
Capitoline. 

Once more in the Middle Ages men fell 
under the illusion of peace. They dreamed 
of a united Europe, in which Christian 
should no longer fight against Christian. 
Under St. Louis, for a golden moment, the 
ideal became reality. The seeds were being 
sown, from which time reaped the wars of 
religion with their fruit of blood. 
[ 28 ] 



PREFACE 

War, like peace, is an illusion. In every 
conflict history knows, both sides have be- 
lieved, or at least persuaded themselves, that 
theirs was the cause of right. Plausible justi- 
fications for the most shameless aggressions, 
have been not only found, but sincerely, even 
passionately, believed. No one dies, or 
even fights very well, for what he believes is 
wrong. It is illusion that is sending mil- 
lions to their death on the battle-fields of 
France. 

Illusion, thus the cause of war, is clearly 
not always beneficent. Religious perse- 
cutions, human sacrifices, Crusades, Salem 
witchcraft trials, juggernauts and the rest 
have been a favourite theme with nineteenth 
century materialists. Indeed, so strong an 
emphasis has been laid upon the malevolent 
aspects of illusion, as to lead men to forget 
the deeper truth that its influence is more 
truly and more commonly benign. We 
have tried to dispel illusion, without ever 
stopping to question whether, after all, it 
may not be an essential of human happiness. 
For centuries men have been waging an in- 
sensate crusade against it, wilfully ignoring 
[29 ] 



PREFACE 

the unescapable fact that, whether for good 
or for evil, it is the ineradicable essence of 
human life. As early as the sixteenth cen- 
tury, the mediaeval church became a chief 
object of attack. Finding the combination 
of art and religion invincible, materialism 
divided the hitherto undividable two, that 
each might be crushed separately. Between 
the Lutheran Reformation and the Council 
of Trent, Christianity lost the patina of cen- 
turies, was cleaned, varnished, made cold 
and metallic. The effect was as disastrous 
as when a picture or a cathedral is subjected 
to a similar process of archaeological restora- 
tion. Religion deprived of art, and art de- 
prived of religion, both fell into a decline. 

Characteristically enough, it was Ger- 
many that first patented, if she did not pre- 
cisely invent, modern materialism, as Ger- 
many has always remained the principal 
centre of its manufacture. Unhappily, Ger- 
man materialism was not preserved wholly 
unmixed with idealistic elements. For in 
that event it must inevitably have proved 
self-destructive, and Prussia have crumbled, 
sapped by degeneration. Materialism with- 
[30 ] 



PREFACE 

out idealism is as perilous as idealism un- 
tempered by materialism. In either excess 
lies not only danger but certain destruction. 
Something of this the German despots, 
either instinctively or through conscious 
reasoning, appear to have grasped. They 
counterbalanced the impurities of their 
materialism by an antiseptic — an antiseptic 
that was also a poison. 

No immaterial power is greater than that 
of sacrifice. A lioness or even a song bird 
will display greater courage and strength in 
fighting for her young than for herself. 
Men will endure for the good of others, 
privations they would never support for 
their own advancement. From the unself- 
ishness of sacrifice comes a strength no 
interested motive can ever give. Sacrifices 
can only be made for an ideal, an illusion. 
An atheist brings no offering. The spirit of 
sacrifice, although perverted, is still the al- 
cohol which has made German materialism 
formidable. 

Forty years ago there remained in Ger- 
many an illusion only slightly damaged 
by the attacks of the illusion-breakers, per- 
[ 31 ] 



PREFACE 

haps the only one capable of arousing en- 
thusiasm among a materialistic people of the 
nineteenth century. It was the illusion of 
military power, ancient and seductive as sin. 
The sacrifices made for this ideal seem to 
have saved Prussia, at least temporarily, 
from disintegration. The Germans dreamed 
of conquest and empire and glory, and of 
the right of the strong, and in this dream 
found a power outside of the physical. 
Materialism acquired wicked strength 
through the force of immaterialism. The 
outcome of the war depended not so much 
upon whether our materialism was more 
powerful than German materialism, but 
upon whether our immaterialism was 
greater. It depended upon whether our 
ideals more than the Teutonic ideals were 
able to inspire us with willingness to sacri- 
fice, with strength to do and with courage to 
die. The war of 1914 was thus the final 
proof of the impotence of fact. 

It seems, therefore, clear that the modern 

age has been misguided in its exclusive 

search after truth. Our pursuit of fact has 

perverted, but in no wise destroyed, our 

[ 32 ] 



PREFACE 

imagination. The attempt to disregard a 
fundamental law of human nature has again 
demonstrated the truth of Hamlet's para- 
dox: Nothing is, but what is not. Illusion 
is a necessity. Without it we should have 
neither religion, art, literature, initiative, 
achievement, love, patriotism, nor what else 
makes life, at moments, sweet. Monism has 
once more proved fatally inadequate. In 
the temple of life, side by side with the lamp 
of truth, there burns with equal brightness, 
and to be disregarded only at the gravest 
risk, the lamp of lies. 

April 1, 1919 



[ 33 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 



[Ephesus at sunrise. Malchus is slinking 
in the shadow of the colonnaded street. 
After a moment of hesitation, he ac- 
costs with resolution Alexander of 
Tralles.] 
Malchus [rapidly and in a low voice']. 
You are a physician? 

Alexander. Stranger, no. 
Malchus [draws back, discouraged]. 
Your scarlet gown — 

Alexander. I am only a student, striv- 
ing to learn how to become a physician. My 
name is Alexander of Tralles. 
Malchus [puzzled]. So? 
Alexander [with emphasis], Alexan- 
der of Tralles. 

Malchus [catching his cue with some 
difficulty, and bowing]. The celebrated 
Alexander of Tralles. 

[ 35 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Alexander. If my name is somewhat 
known, it is only because the world little 
imagines what physicians should, and one 
day will, accomplish. 

Malchus. I come to you for help. 

Alexander. What is your name? 

Malchus. Not being like you, famous, 
my name does not matter. 

Alexander [curious and suspicious']. 
Stranger, if you want help from a physi- 
cian, you must begin by giving — your con- 
fidence. Otherwise your time and mine are 
wasted. 

Malchus. The time of a great physician 
must be paid for in proportion to his fame. 

Alexander. I have other aims than fees. 
When I have treated you, pay me or not as 
you wish. . . . What is your name? 

Malchlts [reluctantly], Malchus. 

Alexander. You are from the East? 

Malchus. No, an Ephesian. 

Alexander [sarcastic]. So I might have 
judged from your clothes and from your 
speech. — What is your trouble? 

Malchus [eagerly, holding out his hand]. 
Feel my pulse! 

[ 36 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Alexander [feeling it]. It is a little 
fast. 

Malchus. Is it not very fast? 

Alexander. No. 

Malchus. The pulse of a man with 
fever? 

Alexander [feeling his temples]. You 
have no fever. 

Malchus. But that may come later. 
The pulse begins to throb before the fever 
comes. Is it not so? 

Alexander. Your pulse is not the pulse 
of a sick man. 

Malchus. Not sick yet, but I shall be. 
I will be. 

Alexander. It is the pulse of a man 
who is under intense excitement — [signifi- 
cantly] who is in danger. 

Malchus. No, no, it's fever. It must 
be fever. 

Alexander. You wish a fever? 

Malchus. I must have fever. 

Alexander. The thought may only too 
probably induce the reality. No one should 
think such things. 

Malchus. I must have fever. 
[ 37 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Alexander. How many sick would be 
well, and you a well man would be sick! 

Malchus. If the fever would only come! 

Alexander. Foolish stranger, I am a 
physician, who cures the sick — not [with 
sinister emphasis] an executioner. 

Malchus [starts — then quickly]. I 
thought I had fever. 

Alexander [overcome by curiosity]. 
Why do you wish to be ill? 

Malchus [impulsively]. That I may 
not be mad! 

Alexander [startled, weighing the 
word]. Mad? 

Malchus. Mad! Would not you rather 
be ill than mad? 

Alexander [after a pause, with altered 
voice]. I am sorry for you. 

Malchus [half to himself]. So, then, 
it is. 

Alexander. And I believe I can help 
you. 

Malchus. Tell me one thing. 

Alexander. If I can, gladly. 

Malchus. I want the truth. 

Alexander. I shall tell you the truth. 
[ 38 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Malchus. Do people who are mad know 
they are mad? 

Alexander. No. 

Malchus. So I thought. 

Alexander. Why do you ask? 

Malchus. Because, you see, I know 
that I am mad. 

Alexander. We physicians call a man 
who knows that he is mad [suddenly con- 
fronting him'] — by another name. 

Malchus [following his own thoughts']. 
Is madness never cured? 

Alexander [softly] . Your madness can, 
and will be cured. 

Malchus [turning quickly upon him]. 
You admit it then, that I am mad? 

Alexander. I admit that you have been 
mad. — What was it drove you to it ? 

Malchus. The most beautiful idea in 
the world. 

Alexander. You, too! 

Malchus. An idea which might — 
which will — cure all the ills of the universe. 

Alexander. And you thought long and 
intensely of this idea ? 

Malchus. It became — and is — my life. 
[ 39 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Alexander. And this idea made you — 
misunderstood? 

Malchus. It is too beautiful for the 
world to understand — as yet. 

Alexander. It is very dangerous for a 
man to be born before his time. 

Malchus. And so I have thought and 
thought — about this idea. 

Alexander [trying to draw him out]. 
And then? 

Malchus [eagerly]. Have you passed 
through the Antioch Gate this morning? 

Alexander [surprised]. I have just 
come from there. 

Malchus [intensely]. Has anything 
happened to the gate? 

Alexander. How should it? 

Malchus. Since last night. 

Alexander. What do you mean? 

Malchus. Since I went out last night. 

Alexander. The gate is as usual. 

Malchus [lowering his voice]. The prae- 
tor sometimes lays snares to take those he 
is in search of. 

Alexander [again leading him on]. 
Yes, clever snares. 

[ 40 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Malchus [feeling his way~\. Do you 
think the prsetor should lay snares to take 
Christians ? 

Alexander. It is his duty to punish 
those who break the law. 

Malchus. Last night he put a cross 
over the city gate. 

Alexander. The cross has always been 
there. 

Malchus. You don't know what I mean 
— I mean a cross, made of two pieces of 
wood, so. The praetor last night, I say, put 
a cross on the gate. 

Alexander. I did not notice. 

Malchus [troubled]. You didn't see it 
then? 

Alexander [reassuringly']. I shall go 
and look. 

Malchus. And that is not the worst. 

Alexander. There is something else 
which alarms you? 

Malchus. The whole city is full of 
crosses. I see them on the street-corners 
and over great, strange buildings. I see 
them everywhere. 

Alexander. They trouble you? 
[ 41 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Malchus. And there are crucifixes with 
lamps burning before them. 

Alexander [significantly]. And in the 
churches are confessionals. 

Malchus. It is all a wicked trick to 
take people who have never done harm. 

Alexander [gently] . The door to safety 
is always ajar. 

Malchus. But to have done this all in 
one night ! He must have been aided by the 
demons. 

Alexander. One night? 

Malchus. And then the whole city is 
changed. 

Alexander [trying to piece together]. 
What city? 

Malchus. I recognize these colonnades, 
the gate, the temple, even the very drum 
of Scopas. But the rest is topsy-turvy. It 
is all wrong. You see I forget I am mad. 

Alexander. Yes, you are mad. 

Malchus. Yet it is not strange that I 
know it? It is that which torments me. 

Alexander. I know the remedy. 

Malchus. What is it, then? 

Alexander. I shall show you. But first 
[ 42 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

I must tell you of another case I had, pre- 
cisely like yours. 

Malchus. Like mine ? 

Alexander. Symptom for symptom. 

Malchus. I want to know that man. 

Alexander. Even knowing of him may 
help you. 

Malchus. You cured him? 

Alexander. Yes, it was really I who 
cured him. 

Malchus. How? 

Alexander. That man was an assassin. 
He killed to steal. 

Malchus. May he be forgiven! 

Alexander, He has been forgiven — as 
you shall be. 

Malchus [beginning to understand], I? 

Alexander. He strangled a miser — a 
thin old man whose skin had dried up be- 
neath his long, scraggy hairs. Then he put 
the chest of gold on a donkey, and so carried 
it away to the mountains. 

Malchus. He would go to the moun- 
tains. 

Alexander. Yes, the mountains of 
Sekia. 

[43 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Malchus [starts'], 

Alexander. And he looked about for 
a place to hide the gold. After a time he 
found a cave. 

Malchus [terrified], A cave? 

Alexander. A deep cavern, of which 
the entrance was concealed by vines and 
leaves. 

Malchus [quickly, trying to turn the 
subject]. Did they find out who killed the 
old man? 

Alexander [noting his agitation] . Never. 
And they never shall. 

Malchus. But you know? 

Alexander. Because the murderer told 
me. If I tell you now, it is that I may 
help you as I helped him. He died not 
long ago. 

Malchus [relieved]. Ah, he is dead. 

Alexander. He died one of the most 
honoured citizens of Ephesus. 

Malchus. Well? 

Alexander. For when he came to the 
vine-covered cavern on the mountain of 
Sekia — 

Malchus [interrupting, again trying to 
[ 44 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

parry]. Why should the Ephesians have 
honoured a murderer and a thief? 

Alexander. Because he followed my ad- 
vice. It was my greatest cure. 

Malchtjs. Indeed? 

Alexander. That is the bitterness of 
destiny. The most brilliant cure I have ever 
effected, and I have never been able to speak 
of it. 

Malchtjs. I begin to see. 

Alexander. A cure that not only would 
have added to my own fame, but would have 
been of infinite service to other physicians. 

Malchus. It was a discovery, then? 

Alexander. Yes, really a discovery. 
A great fundamental principle of nature. 
And so simple, too. Any one could 
apply it. 

Malchus. Yet you never told. 

Alexander. Never, except now I am 
going to tell you. 

Malchus. How could you keep it 
secret? 

Alexander. It was hard, but I had to. 
To have spoken a word would have spoiled 
all. 

[ 45 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Malchus. Then you were wise to say 
nothing. 

Alexander. Indeed I was. But now I 
shall tell you. 

Malchus. Well? 

Alexander. My discovery is this. Mad- 
ness is often caused [significantly] by a 
guilty conscience. 

Malchus [boldly]. Why should you 
say this to me ? 

Alexander. And to cure the madness it 
is necessary to wash the conscience, cleanse 
it thoroughly, hang it up in the air and in 
the sun. 

Malchus [protesting']. Before apply- 
ing a remedy you should be sure of your 
diagnosis. 

Alexander. But I was! I recognized 
instantly the malady. And I prescribed the 
remedy, that I now recommend to you. 

Malchus. Tome! 

Alexander. With the money he had 
stolen, he built a chapel. 

Malchus [struck by the word], A 
chapel? 

Alexander. So he atoned for his crime. 
[ 46 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

And he died a short time ago, honoured and 
praised by all the city. His conscience was 
absolved, he became happy and sane. 

Malchtjs. You have almost diagnosed 
my case. 

Alexander [triumphant]. I knew it! 

Malchus. But you are completely 
wrong. 

Alexander. Yet my remedy will save 
you. 

Malchus [sadly"]. Your remedy does 
not apply. 

Alexander. Tell me the truth. You see 
I stand your friend, ready to help you. 

Malchus [slowly]. I dare not. 

Alexander [softly]. So bad as that? 

Malchus. No — so good. 

Alexander. That way madness lies! 

Malchus [deeply troubled]. Yes, I 
think I am a little mad. 

Alexander. That other, when he came 
to me, was mad. 

Malchus. How did he show it? 

Alexander. Like you he walked on tip- 
toe, never striking the ground with his heel. 

Malchus. I have nothing to fear. 
[ 47 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Alexander. Like you, his eyes avoided 
one's glance. 

Malchus [looking steadily at Aim]. 
That is not true. 

Alexander. Like you he saw things 
which did not exist. 

Malchus [intense']. What do you mean 
by that ? What did he see ? 

Alexander. He came to me, his entire 
body trembling like a leaf. 

Malchus. I do not tremble [holding out 
his arm]. See, my hand is firm! 

Alexander. Not so very steady. 

Malchus. What did he see? [eagerly']. 
Was there something on the city gate? 

Alexander. Stranger than that. What 
he told me was this. When he had taken 
the gold to the mountain of Sekia — 

Malchus [defiant]. Well? 

Alexander. You remember — after the 
murder — I began to tell you — 

Malchus [self -controlled]. Yes, after 
the murder — 

Alexander. Well, he hunted around for 
a cave on the mountain. 

Malchus. In which to hide the gold? 
[ 48 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Alexander. Exactly. At last he found 
a cave, or at least so he said. 

Malchtjs. And he left the gold there? 

Alexander. No, he left the gold on the 
donkey outside, and went in to explore the 
cave. 

Malchus [intense]. To see if it was a 
suitable place to leave his treasure. 

Alexander. Precisely. But just then 
an extraordinary thing happened. 

Malchus [losing control] . Tell me what 
you know ! 

Alexander. Of course I don't believe 
it for a moment. At the time I didn't be- 
lieve it. 

Malchus [impatient]. Believe what? 

Alexander. He was clearly as mad as 
March. He just imagined that he saw it. 

Malchus [again becoming cautious]. 
That is probable. 

Alexander. Yet there were strange 
things about it — things not easy to explain. 

Malchus [uneasy]. What do you mean? 

Alexander. There was a legend through 
the country-side. People had been whisper- 
ing to each other. 

[ 49 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Malchus. What had they been whisper- 
ing? 

Alexander. Exactly what he thought 
he saw. 

Malchus. Tell me what you know! 

Alexander. Mind you, I have never be- 
lieved a word of it. The hallucination of a 
guilty conscience, that is what I call it. That 
made him imagine he had seen things. 

Malchus. When one is mad, one does 
imagine. 

Alexander. And the proof of it is this. 

Malchus. You are too right. 

Alexander. When he tried to go back 
to the cave, he could never find his way. 

Malchus [with rising excitement]. Tell 
me what you know! 

Alexander [observing his emotion]. 
He even claimed that his cure was due not 
to me, but to this pretended vision of his. 
But I can prove he lied. 

Malchus. What did he see? 

Alexander [tantalizing]. The proof is 
this. After the vision he kept the blood- 
money. For all his madness and terror he 
did not forget to look after that. 
[ 50 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Malchus. Blood-money ? 

Alexander. But I made him give it up. 
Then his conscience was freed, and his soul 
was healed. 

Malchus. What did he see? 

Alexander. In the cave? 

Malchus. Go on. 

Alexander. I will tell you what he said. 

Malchus. Well? 

Alexander. He said that after he had 
penetrated some distance in the cave — the 
darkness — I have forgotten just how 
he expressed it [watching Malchus nar- 
rowly], 

Malchus [with forced calm"]. Why do 
you look at me like that ? 

Alexander. The darkness suddenly be- 
came light. 

Malchus [surprised]. That was sin- 
gular. 

Alexander. Although he couldn't in 
the least tell from whence the light came. 

Malchus. What did he see? 

Alexander. And by this light he saw 
— seven men asleep. 

Malchus [in terror] . Seven men asleep ! 
[ 51 ] 



THE 


SKVKN WHO SLEPT 
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THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

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t: ::.- :r" en " z: -:: 

3Li:zt "-.. z z - " Wlei 

did these seven fall asleep! 

Az :zl. H'jzzire: - 

-. i . :-: z '.. . . : ■ - 

««*]. What were their nan 

Az : II I :.-r_.: Z-izzri 

g: "t:. : :: ".::.' zn-r: 

Malcktts. An: \t 
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MALcmrs. Each seated on 

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THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Alexander. And it is I, I who have 
done it. 

Malchus. Not you. 

Alexander. Not the seven who sleep, 
but I! 

Malchus. Through you. 

Alexander. You both must needs come 
to me. 

Malchus. For your help, I thank you. 

Alexander. I could be of greater 
service. 

Malchus. The cure is complete. I am 
your debtor [puts his hand in his wallet]. 

Alexander [restraining him]. Let no 
gold come between you and me. I ask no 
pay of you, — only service. 

Malchus. Service shall be given for 
service ! 

Alexander. Justice for service! 

Malchus. Justice? 

Alexander. When you hear men talk 
of Alexander of Tralles, speak well of me. 

Malchus. You ask only this? 

Alexander. That is all. 



[ 54 ] 



II 

[The shop of a baker. Customers and 
idlers.] 

The Bishop's Man. A dozen loaves for 
his lordship the bishop ! 

The Baker [serving him]. A dozen 
loaves of fine white flour — and a bun with 
a plum for Julian. 

The Bishop's Man. He, he! 

An Idler [punching his neighbour]. A 
bun with a plum for Julian ! 

Second Idler. Julian the acolyte. 

The Bishop's Man [goes out]. 

The Baker. Every day new honours, is 
it not shameful? 

The Idler. Sub-deacon, deacon, priest — 

Second Idler. Ordinary, cardinal, abbot. 

The Baker. Next it will be co-bishop. 

The Idler. Or bishopess [laughter]. 

The Baker. I curse and wish them ill, 
the two of them! 

The Crowd [frightened, is silent]. 

The Baker [enraged at the silence, beat- 
[ 55 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

ing the counter with his fist]. I curse and 
wish the bishop ill. 

The Student [young and handsome, 
coming forward from the crowd] . Why, my 
friend? 

The Baker. For all the mischief he has 
done. 

The Student. I, too. 

The Baker. Is it right that he should 
ride in a coach, while I walk on foot? 

The Student. If he walked more it 
would be better for his health. 

The Baker. Why should I bake, while 
he eats? 

The Student. He has gout from over- 
feeding, while the poor starve. 

The Baker. Why is he better than I? 

The Student. Why should not every 
man be given the bishop's chance? 

The Baker. I say the poor must be like 
the rich. 

The Student. And I that the rich must 
be like the poor. 

The Idler. Down with the bishop ! 

The Baker [to the student]. I tell you 
the bishop is a thief. 

[ 56 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Idler [interrupting']. He has 
stolen the people's money. 

The Baker [beating the counter]. He 
has stolen my money ! 

The Idler [laughing]. Your money! 

The Baker [furious] , My money. You 
know the chapel on the mountain of Sekia? 
— That is my chapel. 

The Idler [jeering]. Ha, the baker's 
chapel ! 

The Baker. Yes, my chapel, built with 
my money. 

The Student. Your money? 

The Baker. My money. Money that 
should have belonged to me. 

The Student. How so? 

The Baker [lowering his voice]. The 
man who built that chapel — saint they call 
him — [sneering] the bishop calls him — 
was — [shouting] a thief ! 

The Idler. A thief ! 

The Baker. A thief and a murderer ! 

The Idler. A murderer ! 

The Baker. He killed my uncle and 
stole his gold. 

The Idler. The rascal! 
[ 57 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Baker. And then he gives to the 
bishop to build a church, the money that 
should be mine. 

The Student. Did all the money go 
for the church \ 

The Baker. The bishop kept the half 
for himself. 

The Idler. You know that? 

The Student. It is not that, but the 
bishop he knows. 

The Second Idler [to the Baker]. 
If the money were yours, what better would 
you do with it \ 

The Baker. I should ride in a coach like 
my lord bishop. 

The Idler. The bishop should be made 
to give it up. 

The Baker. Give it up? Xothe! 

The Second Idler. The gold spent 
on the chapel was used for a good 
end. 

The Baker. So the bishop said when I 
asked him to disgorge. 

The Student. The bishop knows? 

The Baker. And has always known. 

The Idler. You went to him? 
[ 58 ] 



THE SEVEN" WHO SLEPT 

Tzzz B ^~ 2 Tzt - I ziecei :> 

z*zzztr - r z zz 

Tzzz Iz ~ 7~ .. H:~ izi tzz iiie:--=7 :z ; 

Tzzz B^zzzz. I :i-t z- -- :: zz :- 
z: i :: : z 

Tzzz Izzzz.. Y zz zi have the money. 

Tzzz ji ^zzzz ^zt ::zz Jirealeoed me 
. zz : zzzizzi z I e~er z 



Tzzi Izzzz ^zt zz z z 

Tzzz E^zzzzz D:-zz—z_ -.- . : 



^z: zz ^zzzz Azz z_:z: : : zzc 
gin all gilded. 

Tzzz Izzzz. Azz :^z.-_z ; ::•: zz: 



Tzzz E^zzzz. Azz_~ zz. z _ _ - 
zzzrYr zzzzzzz izf z. z - Lzzzes. 

___ ____ 1--- -. c-- \ 



Tzzz Szzzzzz — : zz 
people! 

Tzz E_zzzz. W e : sz 
zzz. 

Tzzzlzzzzz Yz v 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Baker. Who says I dare not? 

The Idler. I ! 

The Baker. You! 

The Student [intervening to make 
peace]. They say last night there was a 
light on the mountain of Sekia. 

The Idler [crossing himself]. Some one 
has seen the seven ! 

The Student. The seven who sleep. 

The Baker. When they have been seen, 
the sky always glows. 

The Idler. Some soul has been in 
danger. 

The Student. If it should be the 
bishop? 

The Baker. His soul will boil in 
Hell. 

The Idler [gloating]. And I shall 
reach down to him drops of water. 

Malchus [in the doorway]. May I buy 
bread from you? 

The Idler. Yes, stranger, and his soul 
too, if you will pay for it. 

The Baker [seizing a rolling-pin]. 
Blood of Christ, you shall pay for that! 

The Student [interposing]. No quar- 
[ 60 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

relling among friends. Save your hate for 
common enemies. 

The Baker. Right, the bishop shall pay 
for all. 

The Idler. We'll square counts with 
the bishop. 

The Student. Only not too fast! 

Malchus [shrinking within himself]. 
Give me seven loaves of bread. 

The Baker [serving him']. A hearty 
breakfast for a simple man. The bishop 
with all his household takes only a dozen. 

The Idler. And a bun with a plum for 
Julian. 

The Baker. Ha, ha! 

The Student [to Malchus]. You eat 
like a man who has great hunger. 

Malchus. Yes, one is hungry — after 
one has slept. 

The Student. You come from far? 

Malchus. Yes, from farther than the 
end of the world. 

The Student. You are tired? 

Malchus. I am sad. 

The Baker. We have rare sport in hand 
will cheer you up! 

[ 61 1 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Student. We plan to throw the 
bishop out. 

The Baker. You shall help us. 

The Idler. Mother of Christ, but I shall 
laugh to see him go ! 

Malchus. You drive out your bishop? 

The Baker. That we shall. 

Malchus. And when he is gone what 
will you do? 

The Student. We shall be free and 
rule ourselves. 

The Idler. If we wish, we can make 
some one else bishop. 

The Baker. We can decide afterwards 
what to do. The main thing is to drive the 
bishop out. 

Malchus. You would drive your bishop 
out? 

The Student. We would and will. 

Malchus. Are you Christians? 

The Baker [disgusted]. He's only a 
parasite of the priests. 

The Idler. We have told him too much. 

Malchus. Forgive me. You see I am a 
stranger who has come from far. Are all 
the people here Christians? 
[ 62 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Student. Why, of course they are 
Christians. Why shouldn't they be? 

Malchus. And there are no pagans at 
all? 

The Student [laughing]. Naturally not. 

Malchus. Why, then, we are all 
brothers. 

The Baker. Yes, if you will join us 
against the bishop. 

Malchus. But he is a Christian, too. 

The Idler. He is a dog. 

The Baker. God damn him in Hell ! 

Malchus. How long have there been 
Christians in Ephesus ? 

The Student. Why, for centuries. 

Malchus. Were there never pagans 
then? 

The Student. Of course, there were 
pagans here as everywhere else. 

Malchus. And they persecuted the 
Christians once? 

The Student. Yes, of course. 

Malchus. When did they persecute 
them last ? 

The Student. Why, hundreds of years 
ago. 

[ 63 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Malchus. Who was emperor then? 

The Student. The worst persecution 
took place, I believe, under Decius. 

Malchus. It was then the seven — so 
I think they call them — fell asleep. 

The Student. So they say. 

Malchus. How long ago was that? 

The Student. Three hundred — three 
hundred and fifty — three hundred and sev- 
enty — three hundred and seventy-two years 
ago. 

Malchus. Then the seven have been 
sleeping for three hundred and seventy-two 
years. 

The Student. So they say. 

Malchus. And the Ephesians for three 
hundred and seventy-two years have been 
Christians ? 

The Student. For something like that. 

Malchus. And these are Ephesians that 
I see about me ? 

The Baker. What would you expect 
at Ephesus? 

Malchus. Men who have been Chris- 
tians for three hundred and seventy-two 
years? 

[ 64 ,] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Idler. Assuredly. 

Malchus. And the whole world is Chris- 
tian? 

The Idler. Do you come from another 
planet that you do not know? 

The Baker. Our missionaries have pen- 
etrated to the Orkneys and the Indies. The 
heathen who won't believe, will all be burned. 

Malchus. Are all Christians like you? 

The Baker. That villain of a bishop is 
a bitch. 

Malchus. Are there still wars? 

The Idler. You've heard the news of 
the great victory? 

Malchus. What is it? 

The Idler. Why, every one knows. 
All Italy is ours! After Africa, now Italy. 

Malchus. Were the men there Chris- 
tians ? 

The Idler. Why, of course. Our gen- 
eral cut to pieces and destroyed the Italian 
army, killed, they say, tens and tens of 
thousands. We may all expect a share in 
the plunder. 

Malchus. That, too? 

The Idler. The man is mad. 
[ 65 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Malchus. Only heavy-hearted. 

The Student [sympathetically]. You 
have come from far? 

Malchus. I have travelled a great dis- 
tance. Now I am going back. 

The Student. Without having accom- 
plished anything? 

Malchus. I have learned — that from 
great crimes are born great miracles. [Go- 
ing.'] 

The Baker. You have not paid me for 
the bread. 

Malchus [throws a coin on the counter']. 

The Student [drawing him aside]. You 
will not betray us to the bishop? 

The Idler [whispering in his ear]. If 
you should, I shall kill you. 

The Baker [drawing him aside]. How 
did you come by that coin you gave 
me? 

Malchus [hesitating]. It was in my 
wallet. 

The Baker. I understand well enough 
what you are. 

Malchus. You understand? You? — 
My friend! 

[ 66 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Baker. Yes, your friend — on cer- 
tain conditions. 

Malchus. What do you mean? 

The Baker. I shall be satisfied with half. 

Malchus. Half what? 

The Baker. Half the swag. 

Malchus [understanding]. Ah! 

The Baker. It's no use to play the 
innocent with me. 

Malchus [facing him]. What do you 
mean? 

The Baker. I mean you have found a 
treasure and I want half. 

Malchus. I have found no treasure. 

The Baker. So much the worse, then. 
You have stolen it. 

Malchus. I have stolen nothing. 

The Baker. No, of course you have not. 
But for a half I shall not only say nothing, 
I shall help you get rid of it. 

Malchus. I have nothing to get rid of. 
I have lost everything, even my dream. 

The Baker [holding out the coin]. 
There will be plenty more of the same kind 
where this came from. 

Malchus [showing him his wallet]. You 
[ 67 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

see it is nearly empty. Hardly anything 
left. 

The Baker. My friend, you can't pass 
off these old coins. 

Malchus. It is gold. 

The Baker. And four hundred years 
old. Any fool would know you had not 
come by it honestly. 

Malchus. So it is four hundred years 
old! 

The Baker. But for half I shall not 
breathe a word. And I shall help you 
pass it off. We shall melt it down in my 
ovens. 

Malchus. I have no gold. 

The Baker. Come, I will not be unrea- 
sonable. I will do it for a third. 

Malchus. I have nothing to give you. 

The Baker [threatening]. We'll see 
what the bishop says to that. 

Malchus. The bishop ? 

The Baker. Whoever denounces a thief 
gets a quarter of the swag. 

Malchus. Yes, take me to your bishop ! 

The Baker. You think I dare not? 

Malchus. I demand to see the bishop. 
[ 68 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Baker. You might go scot-free if 
you would give me just one little third. 

Malchus [raising his voice]. Where is 
your bishop? 

The Baker [outshouting him']. This 
man is a thief! Bind him and take him to 
the bishop. 

The Student [amid general uproar and 
excitement] . Thief ? 

The Baker [holding up coin]. See the 
stolen gold he tried to pass on me. 

The Idler. Thief! 

The Student [drawing the Baker aside, 
while the crowd presses about Malchus], 
This is imprudent. The man knows too 
much. 

The Baker. It 's worth the risk. 

The Student. If he accuses us? 

The Baker. We deny, of course. 

The Student. No, we strike! 

The Baker. Strike, to-day? 

The Student. To-day, or never. Which- 
ever way the bishop decides, we take the 
other side. 

The Baker. If it should happen that 
I get the gold? 

[ 69 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Student. We must strike the same. 
This man will surely tell the bishop. You 
were a fool to interfere with him. 

The Baker. The bishop will never be- 
lieve a man like that. 

The Student. We shall accuse the 
bishop of heresy. 

The Baker. Of heresy? 

The Student. I have heard it whis- 
pered he does not believe in immortality. 

The Baker. Well? 

The Student. Be prepared for any- 
thing. 



[ 70 ] 



Ill 

[The Bishop's Palace. The Bishop and 
Julian.~\ 

The Bishop. No, my Julian, you are 
wrong. It 's not what, but that one believes. 

Julian. Above all, the truth! 

The Bishop. You are very young. 

Julian. Perhaps. 

The Bishop. When I was young, I 
thought as you do. I too loved the truth. 

Julian. Well? 

The Bishop. Now I have changed. 

Julian. I shall never change. 

The Bishop. One day you will learn, 
as I have, that truth causes evil in the 
world. 

Julian. Would you have lies, hypocrisy ? 

The Bishop. My Julian! How little 
you understand. 

Julian. Yet that little is solid ground. 

The Bishop. It is the truth which breeds 
hypocrisy and lies. 

[ Tl ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Julian. The truth? 

The Bishop. The unattainable, phan- 
tom, wicked truth. 

Julian. There I can not, will not, follow 
you. 

The Bishop. One day you will have to. 

Julian. You would leave your people 
— in this superstition? 

The Bishop. Since they are better and 
happier for it. 

Julian. And you will let them think 
you believe it, when you don't ? 

The Bishop. I believe — in belief. 

Julian. But you and I — know. 

The Btshop. Well, then, we know there 
is no immortality. 

Julian, So we have often agreed. 

The Bishop. Suppose we are right. 

Julian. We are right. 

The Bishop. Suppose we are right. 

Julian, Surely, we should share the 
truth with others — rid our creed of error. 

The Bishop. You and I, who see this 
truth — are we on that account — better? 

Julian. We are one step — a slight step, 
still a step — higher. 

[ 72 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Bishop. Or, perhaps, — lower? 

Julian. Higher. It is because our 
knowledge of facts is only partial, we are 
men, not gods. 

The Bishop. On the contrary, ever since 
the days of Eden, it is the thirst for knowl- 
edge that has barred our race from Paradise. 

Julian. The fool's Paradise. 

The Bishop. There is no other. The 
only Paradise is that of unreality. 

Julian. If it is unreal, it is nothing. 

The Bishop. Unreality is the only real 
thing in the world. These people who be- 
lieve in an immortality — which, you and I 
know, does not exist — 

Julian. Well? 

The Bishop. Through fear of an imag- 
inary punishment, or in pursuit of an imag- 
inary reward, abstain from evil, even do 
good. 

Julian. It is a knave's part to be virtu- 
ous in fear of a whipping or in hope of a 
sweetmeat. 

The Bishop. Men, my Julian, are moral 
cowards, and always will be. This immor- 
tality — 

[ 73 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Julian. Go on. 

The Bishop. By belief in Heaven, who 
knows how many heartaches have been as- 
suaged, how many have found courage to 
face — even death. Would you deprive hu- 
manity of so much solace — for a cold, bar- 
ren truth? 

Julian. And who knows how many, 
through fear of Hell, have been prevented 
from finding — peace. 

The Bishop. To live, perhaps, happily. 

Julian. Even if you are right, truth 
would be worth all this and more. 

The Bishop. The truth is full of 
gloom. 

Julian. It was enjoined by Christ. 

The Bishop. Christ never wished men 
to be unhappy. He preached no gospel of 
gloom. 

Julian. He surely wished men to be 
sincere. 

The Bishop. He wished men to be, first 
of all — joyous. 

Julian. Joyous? 

The Bishop. Let the Christian observe 
his fasts, but enjoy his feasts. Let him eat 

[ 74 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

well-cooked food and drink choice vintage 
wines. 

Julian. That way lies disintegration. 

The Bishop. And the church should be 
beautiful with candles and incense and 
music and mosaics and tapestries and over- 
head great arches. 

Julian. Hope lies rather in simplicity 
and truth. 

The Bishop. Simplicity and truth spell 
asceticism; and it is the gloom of asceticism 
that always has been, and always will be, 
the most insidious enemy of religion. 

Julian. I hear an uproar on the street 
below. 

The Bishop [looking out']. My friend 
the Baker is bringing to a head his little 
conspiracy. 

The Bishop's Man [coming in]. 
There 's one below asks justice. 

The Bishop. Let them come [the 
Bishop's Man goes out. — To Julian] The 
guards are ready in the inner room? 

Julian. You have only to call. 

The Bishop. Your sword is where you 
can reach it ? 

[ 75 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Julian. Under my cassock. 

The Bishop. Have it loose in the scab- 
bard, but do not let it show. And have 
plenty of our people, armed, mingle with 
the crowd, and especially stand near me. 
[Julian goes out. The crowd comes in, 
led by the Baker and the Student. Mal- 
chus is guarded by several. The Bishop as- 
cends his throne.] 

The Idler. He's guilty! 

Second Idler. I say he's innocent. 

The Student. He 's clearly a thief. 

The Idler. Nothing of the kind. 

The Student. He should be acquitted. 

Second Idler. Throw him in prison ! 

The Baker. Justice, my lord bishop, 
against this thief! 

The Bishop [to the Baker]. Has he 
injured you? 

The Baker. I caught him red-handed 
in the act — trying to pass off his stolen 
gold. 

The Bishop. So you have come to me 
to claim your thirty pieces? 

The Baker. I claim my quarter — 
[struck] you know how much it is ? 
[ 76 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Bishop [smiles]. 

The Idlee. They say Alexander of 
Tralles knows all about this man. 

The Bishop. Let him be summoned. 

The Bishop's Man [goes out]. 

The Bishop [to the Baker], What is 
your evidence? 

The Baker [triumphantly] . This [holds 
out coin]. 

The Bishop. An ancient coin. 

The Baker. An ancient coin of Ephe- 
sus. 

The Bishop. Yes, it is of Ephesus, and 
very old. 

The Baker. This man who comes from 
far — 

The Bishop. Does he come from far? 

The Baker. You can see his clothes. 

The Bishop. They are extraordinary. 

The Student. And his speech, — no one 
in Ephesus speaks as well as he. 

The Baker. And he openly said he 
had arrived from far away. That they all 
heard. 

The Student. He said that distinctly. 

The Idler. So he did. 
[ 77 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Several. We all heard that. 

The Baker. This man who has just ar- 
rived from far away, gives me in payment 
for bread an ancient Ephesian coin. 

The Bishop. Well? 

The Baker. Only two things are pos- 
sible. Either he stole it, or he found a 
treasure. 

The Bishop. So? 

The Baker. And if he found it, he stole 
it the same, since it was not his. 

The Bishop. Is this all your evidence? 

The Baker. Is it not enough? 

The Bishop [smiles]. 

The Baker. I say he 's guilty. 

The Bishop [suddenly to the Student]. 
Beautiful boy, do you think I should pun- 
ish those who break the law? 

The Student. If the law is just. 

The Bishop. How am I to know 
whether the law be just? 

The Student. I suppose everyone 
knows what is right. 

The Bishop. I suppose no one knows 
what is right. 

The Student [at a loss], 
[ 78 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Bishop [kindly]. You believe in 
ideals ? 

The Student. Deeply. 

The Bishop. You are what one might 
call — an idealist? 

The Student. I trust so. 

The Bishop. Then let an older man 
whisper a warning in your ear. Unmixed 
idealism is as pernicious as unmixed materi- 
alism. Salvation lies in the middle way. 

The Student. Compromise is damna- 
tion! 

The Bishop. For example, do you think 
I or he [pointing to the Baker~\ would make 
a better bishop? 

The Student [after a moment of hesi- 
tation] . You ! 

The Bishop [smiles]. 

The Student [is silent]. 

The Bishop. Beautiful boy, I myself 
am not without ideals. 

The Student [is silent]. 

The Bishop. And remember this. The 
very fact that I have become bishop indi- 
cates, perhaps, some fitness. 

The Student. You play well. 
[ 79 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Bishop. Precisely. One ideal that 
will work, is worth two that will not. Mine 
work. 

The Student [is silent]. 

The Bishop [to the Student], I often 
wonder which is worse, the many or the few. 

The Student [is silent]. 

The Bishop [smiles]. 

The Bishop. What would Socrates be 
worth, in a nation of savages ? 

The Student. He would not be a popu- 
lar ruler. 

The Bishop. He would be a bad ruler. 

The Student. Perhaps. 

The Bishop. He would rule the sav- 
ages as badly as a savage would rule a nation 
— like ours. 

The Student. Socrates must not be put 
under a savage. 

The Bishop. It is you, not I, that 
wish it. 

The Student. I only wish — the right. 

The Bishop. Between me and him 
[pointing to the Baker], the right is proved 
by [pointing to his robes] this. 

The Student. And justice? 
[ 80 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Bishop. Beautiful boy, justice is 
a compromise between conflicting forces. 

The Student. Whatever is, is wrong. 

The Bishop. Except what will be. I 
who shall be, am right. 

The Student [turning it over']. What- 
ever is, not quite so long as it is, is right. 

The Bishop. Whatever is, was right. 

The Student. Is it the past that is 
wrong, or the future? 

The Bishop. The present! — Beauti- 
ful boy, I see that you and I shall yet be 
friends. 

The Student [is silent]. 

The Bishop. You have not answered 
my question. Shall I punish those who 
break the law? 

The Student [bewildered, at random]. 
Yes. 

The Bishop. What punishment would 
you suggest for those who have conspired 
against the right? 

The Student. Against the right? 

The Bishop. Against me, who since I 
shall be, am the right. [At a signal from 
the Bishop the armed guard appears in the 
[ 81 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

doorway. People of the Bishop quietly re- 
move the swords of the Student, the Baker, 
the Idler and others.] 

The Bishop [smiles']. 

The Baker [under his breath] . Hounds 
of Hell! 

The Bishop [to Malchus]. Are you also 
my enemy? 

Malchus. I am no man's enemy. 

The Bishop [to Alexander of Tralles, 
who has just come in] . Do you know good 
or evil of this man? 

Alexander. No evil. He has been mad. 

The Bishop [surprised]. Mad? 

Alexander [complacently] . He was, but 
I cured him. 

The Bishop. How did he come by this 
gold? 

Malchus [tries to speak]. 

Alexander [cutting him off]. He does 
not know. He can remember nothing. 

Malchus [tries to speak]. 

Alexander [in an authoritative manner]. 
Nothing! 

The Bishop. And he is now entirely 
cured? 

[ 82 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Alexander. Almost. 

The Bishop. Clever physician! He 
keeps the gold? 

Alexander. That should be given to 
Mother Church. 

The Baker [between his teeth]. An- 
other chapel! 

The Bishop [smiles], 

Alexander. Then his cure will be com- 
plete. 

The Bishop [to Malchus], Have you 
the gold? 

Malchus [showing his wallet]. You see, 
my purse is nearly empty. 

Alexander. What have you done with 
it? 

Malchus [is silent]. 

The Bishop [to Alexander], Perhaps 
these may be deeper waters than you 
imagine. How do you know he was 
mad? 

Alexander. The symptoms were clear. 

The Bishop. Name them. 

Alexander. He thought he was an 
Ephesian, although his speech and his dress 
clearly showed he was a foreigner. 
[ 83 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Baker [plucking up courage']. He 
told us he had just come from far. 

Alexander. You see I cured him of his 
delusion. 

Julian. I see that he lied. 

The Bishop [to Alexander']. Proceed. 

Alexander. Then he said he had seen 
the seven who sleep. 

The Bishop [crossing himself]. The 
seven who sleep ! 

The Bishop's Man. Last night I saw a 
red glow on the mountain of Sekia. 

The Bishop [to Malchus], Was yours 
the guilty soul? 

Malchus. I thought so once, but now 
I have learned otherwise. 

The Bishop. How so? 

Malchus. Let me first ask you a ques- 
tion, you who are God's emissary. 

The Bishop [struck by something in his 
manner]. Well? 

Malchus. Is it true that from great 
crimes, great miracles are born? 

The Bishop [pondering the phrase]. It 
is you who tell me. 

Malchus. Then why am I sent? 
[ 84 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Bishop. I do not understand 
you. 

Malchus. I am the miracle. 

The Bishop. The miracle? 

Malchus. I am one of the seven who 
slept [profound silence]. 

Malchus. I am one of the seven who 
slept. 

The Bishop. Who are these seven who 
sleep ? 

Malchus. They did sleep, but now they 
have awakened. 

The Bishop. Why did they sleep? 

Malchus. From great crimes, great mir- 
acles are born. 

The Bishop. And what is born from 
miracles ? 

Malchus [softly]. That is what I do 
not know. Perhaps nothing. 

The Bishop. Nothing? 

Malchus. But dreams. 

The Bishop. Good dreams? 

Malchus. Who knows! 

The Bishop. Who are the seven who 
slept? 

Malchus. Three hundred and seventy- 
[ 85 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

two years ago — [To the Student.] It was 
so you said, was it not? 

The Student. I? 

Malchus. That they were persecuting 
the Christians at Ephesus. 

The Student. That is true. 

Malchus. It was in the time of the em- 
peror Decius. 

The Student. He did live then. 

Malchus [to the Baker], What is the 
name stamped on that coin you hold? 

The Baker. Why, Decius. 

The Idler. The very same! 

The Bishop. Well? 

Malchus. One evening I and six other 
Christians, fearing arrest, fled to the moun- 
tain. 

The Bishop. The mountain of Sekia? 

Malchus. We fled. It was in that we 
sinned. 

Julian. Saints do not sin. 

The Idler [to the Baker], Yet you ac- 
cused this saint of theft! 

The Baker. He is a thief, no saint. 

The Idler. A saint may be known by 
his enemies. 

[ 86 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Bishop [smiles]. 

The Second Idler. There never was a 
saint who was not persecuted. 

The Bishop [to Malchus]. Well? 

Malchus. We spent the night in a cave. 

The Idler. Ah, the cave on the moun- 
tain of Sekia. 

Malchus. And since there was no place 
to lie down, we slept seated. 

The Bishop. Seated? 

Malchus. Yes, seated on great stones. 
In the morning, this morning, we awoke. 

The Student. After three hundred and 
seventy-two years ? 

Malchus. But we did not know it. The 
others do not know it yet. We thought we 
had slept only a single night. 

The Student. But your beards had 
grown long? 

Malchus. Yes, our beards and our hair 
had grown very long. But we did not spe- 
cially notice it. 

The Bishop. Well? 

Malchus. We were very hungry, since 
we had nothing to eat. And I was chosen 
to go to the city to buy bread. 
[ 87 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Alexander of Tralles. This man is 
mad. 

The Bishop. All saints are mad. 

Malchus. And I found everything so 
strangely changed. 

The Idler. It would be changed after 
three hundred and seventy-two years! 

Malchus. At first I hardly noticed, I 
was so terrified lest I should be recognized 
and arrested. 

Julian. A saint was afraid? 

The Student. Therefore I believe in 
him! 

Malchus. Then I thought I had lost 
my reason. He [pointing to Alexander of 
Tralles'] set me right. He told me of the 
seven who slept. 

The Bishop [to Alexander of Tralles]. 
Is it so? 

Alexander of Tralles. I did tell him 
the legend. 

Malchus. Then when I offered a coin 
to this man [pointing to the Baker] he ac- 
cused me of theft. 

The Idler. The ruffian, to maltreat a 
saint! 

[ 88 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

The Bishop [smiles}. 

The Idler. A miracle! We have seen 
a miracle! 

The Student. It all seems clear. 

Malchus. No, to me it is not clear. 

The Bishop. Not clear? 

Malchus. Why did we sleep? and why 
did we wake? 

Alexander of Tralles. In this world 
is there a why? 

The Bishop. There is, it seems, no why 
but is. 

The Student [to Malchus']. Perhaps 
I, a sinner, can tell you, a saint. 

Malchus. A saint, it appears, is the 
greatest of sinners. 

The Student. I shall tell you, if you 
will first answer for me one question. 

Malchus. Well? 

The Student. Why do we, the rest of 
us, live? 

Malchus. I can not tell. 

The Bishop. Is there any one can tell? 

The Student. This purposefulness in 
life, what we are striving and living for — 
what is it ? 

[ 89 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Alexander of Tralles. Many differ- 
ent things. 

The Student. That is — nothing. We 
are all travelling, moving along some road, 
is it not true? 

Alexander of Tralles. Evidently. 

The Student. Where does that road 
lead? 

Malchus. I can not answer your riddle. 

The Student. Nor I yours. 

Malchus. Yet this I know, I am sent. 

The Student. You slept — and we live ! 

Malchus [ruminating']. From great 
crimes, great miracles are born. 

The Bishop. Well? 

Malchus. Why am I sent? 

Julian. This man is preposterous! 

Malchus [looking at Julian]. My mis- 
sion is to souls in danger. 

Julian. Then look to your own. 

Malchus [to the Bishop], Why am I 
sent to you? 

The Bishop [startled]. To me? 

Malchus. All here have seen one of the 
seven who slept! [General consternation.] 

The Bishop. Heaven defend us! 
[ 90 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Malchus [to the Bishop]. Why am I 
sent to you? 

The Bishop [looking at Julian']. Per- 
haps to save two souls. 

Julian. Please do not include mine. 

Malchus [to Alexander]. Why am I 
sent to you? 

Alexander [covering his face with his 
hands]. I understand. 

Malchus [to the Student]. Why am I 
sent to you? 

The Student. I ask forgiveness from 
Heaven and [pointing to the Bishop] from 
him. 

The Bishop [smiles]. 

Julian. This is all a trick! 

The Bishop [to Malchus] . Your proofs ? 

Malchus. I shall lead you to the 
cave. 

The Bishop [to the Baker]. That coin 
you hold may be a precious relic. 

The Baker [to his apprentice]. Go and 
save the bread he left in my shop. Lock it in 
the strong box. 

The Idler. Pilgrims will come to Ephe- 
sus from all over the world. 
[ 91 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Second Idler. This miracle will be a 
great source of wealth to our city. 

The Baker. They must build a chapel 
in my shop, and I shall open an hospice in 
the house above. 



[ 92 ] 



IV 

[A cave in the mountain of Sekia. Six of 
the seven who slept seated on stones. 
The first stone is vacant. On the sec- 
ond stone, which is the highest, is seated 
Maocimian, and Marcian on a stone cor- 
responding to the vacant one. Below, 
grouped by themselves, Denis, John, 
Serapion and Constantine.~\ 
Constantine. He has been gone a long 
while. 

John. I am hungry. 
Denis. He must come soon. 
Constantine. Should they have taken 
him? 

Serapion. If we die, we die. 
Marcian. If we die, we live. 
Constantine. Without death, there is 
no life. 

Marcian. By our blood, humanity shall 
be redeemed. 

Denis. No more discord, no more war, 
no more poverty. 

[ 93 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Serapion. Whatever happens, we shall 
never recant. 

Maximian. It were best, if possible, to 
sleep a little longer. 

Constantine. We shall have need of all 
our strength. 

Marcian. I feel a strange drowsiness. 

Maximian. Let us sleep a little longer. 
{The sioo, one by one, fall asleep. In the 
distance is heard chanting. ] 

Chorus of Men's Voices [without]. 
Miserere mei, 
Domine, 

Quoniam infirmus sum. 
Sana me, 
Domine, 

Quoniam ossa mea 
Conturbata sunt. 
Et anima mea 
Valde 

Turbata est. 
Animam meam, 
Domine, 

Convertere et eripe 
Fac me salvum 
Propter misericordiam. 
[ 94 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

[Malchus leads in the Bishop, clothed in full 
ecclesiastical vestments, with mitre, 
cope, and crosier. Acolytes swinging 
censers and carrying candles, proces- 
sional banners and crosses. Choristers 
and priests; behind, the populace, 
among whom may be distinguished Al- 
exander of Tralles, the Student, the 
Baker and the Idler. Malchus takes 
his seat on the vacant stone, then he, 
too, sleeps. The Baker on catching 
sight of the seven falls on his knees 
as do some of the people. The others, 
including the Bishop, hesitate. ] 
The Bishop [to Julian]. He said, I 
think, that from great crimes, great miracles 
are born. 

Julian [to the Bishop]. This is all a 
trick. 

The Bishop [to Julian]. Fool! 
Julian [to the Bishop]. To-night? 
The Bishop [to Julian]. No! 
Julian [steals away]. 
The Bishop [falls on his knees. The 
ecclesiastics, then the people, one by one, do 
the same]. 

[ 95 ] 



THE SEVEN WHO SLEPT 

Chorus of Boys' Voices. Kyrie eleison, 

Christe eleison, 

Kyrie eleison! 

Chorus of Men's Voices. Gloria Patri 

Et Filio 
Et Spiritui 

Sancto. 
Sic erat 
In principio 
Et nunc 
Et semper 
Et in saecula 
Saeculorum. 
Chorus of Boys' Voices. Christe eleison! 
Chorus of Men's Voices. In saecula 
saeculorum! 

The Bishop [glancing at the kneeling 
populace j smiles']. 



[ 96 ] 



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